


Love Is A Dog From Hell

by DinosaurTheology



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8750197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: Adrian Pimento has problems. Like, a lot of them. Maybe Rosa can help him work it out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> B99 isn't mind but I really love it. Writing it is a good way to unwind after a looong day on the ambulance.

When Rosa Diaz--or Mina Louwenkraft, as her neighbors know her--enters her apartment (the new one, the secure one) she flickers her eyes around the darkened room, a brief check before the lights come on. It's a good way to make sure that everything is where it belongs... and that nothing that doesn't belong hasn't come to roost in her comfortable abode.

Dragonfly bronze Tiffany lamp, check. Antique brass coat rack with two spare leather jackets hanging from it, yep. Refinished cherry bookcase holding the Bible she got at Confirmation, her Book of Five Rings and a set of the world classics collection, all accounted for along with the carefully crafted glass faeries and dragons that Amy has gotten her for Christmas or birthday presents in the past. Rosa likes the finer things in life, enjoys surrounding herself with elegance and would scoop the eyes out of anyone who commented on it with a melon-baller.

One thing does seem out of place, though. There's a lump in her Basset accent chair, rocking and muttering to itself. Feet that she can tell are ensconced in heavy engineer boots are perched precariously close to, but not quite on thank God and avoid a murder charge, scraping the fine, Caldwell leather. Her gun is out and pointed before she realizes what the hell, exactly, is going on.

She rolls her eyes, flicks the light switch since arguing about this in the darkness would make a stupid situation truly sublime and holsters her Glock 40. "Adrian," she says. "Dude, what the fuck?"

A sad smile splits his wild, coarse beard. It's one of the only things that keeps her from pistol whipping this queer, errant creature that's invaded her life. "Oh, not much. Just, ya know, freaking out. It's not so cool in here, Rosa. There's blood. There's monsters. There's blood monsters."

She flops on the Gordon love-seat, beside him. "Yeah, blood monsters. I get it. You're good and messed up. I wanted to know how you got here."

"I've been here before, you know."

"Yeah," she says, "but you were blindfolded and I lead you through Trenton first."

"It was the longest date I've ever been on."

"It's the best date you've ever been on."

He nods, curls flying. "True that. I cannot deny this. Still, your security precautions weren't, like, perfect. You blindfolded me but you didn't disguise the signature scent of cinnamon that hangs around you, or the sound of that L train when we passed back through Ridgewood. Didn't count on that, did ya?"

"No," she says. Rosa can't help smiling. She really can pick em. Still. "None of this explains the real question though."

"What's that?"

"Why the hell are you sitting here, in the dark, mumbling to yourself and getting your dirty boots all over my chair?"

"Okay, Rosa. Rosa, that is super unfair. I'm not mumbling to myself, I'm mumbling to my many demons. And my boots are not all over your chair."

"They're pretty damned close."

"Close doesn't count. They're chair adjacent at best."

She rolls her eyes again. He brings that out in her. "Look... will this make more sense if we start from the beginning?"

"Er... maybe?"

"Then let's do that."

"So, apart from your feet on my chair--"

"Adjacent to your chair."

"Adjacent. Whatever. Apart from that, Adrian, what the hell is going on?"

"Just... me, you," he says. "This whole thing. I don't know what I'm doing--what we're doing."

She scowls. "I fucking know you're not breaking up with me right now--dumping me with those nasty boots all over my chair." She cuts him off before he can correct her. "And don't say that word again! That 'a' word. I don't wanna hear it. If you're gonna tank this weird, good thing we have going on like this then..." She shrugs. Long, dark curls cluster around her face. "Then I don't know what to tell you, man. I'm all in, but it's gotta be on you, too."

"Break up? What? No!" He waves his hands. "No. I'm all in--believe me, I'd be in about six and a half inches deep all day long, every day, like a lonely little Welsh miner if I could cause... wow. Know what I mean?"

"Hell yeah," she says. "Tommyknockers on the train to bone town."

He actually grins. "All aboard at kitty-kat station. Toot-toot!" He mimics pulling a train's whistle cord. 

"Damn right."

"Up top?" He offers her his hand.

She slaps it, lightly. "So, if that's not the problem, then... what the actual hell, dude?"

"It's, well... no. It's nothing." He shakes his head. "Forget it. Forget I mentioned it. Forget any of this--er, except the train to bone town. Don't ever wanna forget that."

"Great plan, genius," she says. "So next time I can find you with your wrists cut in my bathtub. I am not cleaning that shit up."

"Rosa," he says. "I would never slit my wrists in your bathtub."

"Oh?"

"I'd do the common carotid, right under my ear, or just pierce my aorta or femoral artery at the groin. That would be much quicker."

"You've put an eerie level of thought into this."

"And I'd do it in your bed cause that's way more romantic. Like, a way of saying goodbye."

She actually growls. This man! "Like a way of saying 'Rosa, you're gonna need a new bedspread.'" She blinks, eyes huge and glittering in the darkened room. "That seems planned out way too well to be just idle, dude."

He shrugs. "You only get to commit suicide one time, Rosa," he says. "Jeez. I'm a thoughtful guy. I think it shows how much I care."

"Doing that to me, having me find you here like that in my fucking bed, would show me how much you care?"

"Er... yes?" He squirms in his seat. "It would show I'm not like all those other guys, you know. The ones who just take a bunch of pills and jump in the East River, or something. I'm not like them at all."

"You know what would really show that you care?"

"What?"

"Living, dumbass." She takes his face in her hands and kisses him. He tastes like sweat, fear and two different kinds of awful pepperoni. "I love you, Adrian. I want you here with me for the long haul. You don't get to check out like that. Not on my watch."

"I love you too, Rosa, but..." He shudders. "I don't love myself, very much. I'm a bad man who's done some really awful things and... I don't ever want you to get dragged into any of it. Or just to get hurt because I am who I am. I couldn't ever live with that."

"And you think I could if you died on me like that?"

"You'd be sad, sure, but you'd get over it. I mean, a tear or two, sure, but a lifetime of mourning? I'm just not worth it, Rosa."

"You're worth it," she says. "'Love is a dog from hell.' I'm not super into poetry--flowers, art, that shit. Amy's better at it. But I read this book one time, guy called Bukowski, and he really got it. He got that people are awful, and awful for each other, but that sometimes we have to cling to each other or life would be even worse than it already is."

"A dog from hell," he says. "I like that."

"It's really kinda metal," she says. "So... don't say you're not worth it. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't... I'm not smart enough to know. But I'd mourn for the rest of my life whether you are or not. And when I finally died, I'd be pissed at knowing what you put me through. And I'd chase you all through hell. Got it?"

"Got it." He sags against her. "So, what are we doing to do about it?"

"I don't know, dude," she says. "You've got your issues, and I know I'm not always a bundle of fun. But all we can do is to try to do this thing together. If you feel like you can't make it through the next hour, then make it through the next minute with me."

And so he does, for a minute and then another long into the night. They still slump together, asleep for some time, when the morning comes and may well remain that way for all time.


End file.
